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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29287512">Disassemble</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopitGerald/pseuds/StopitGerald'>StopitGerald</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Inquisitor and The Commander [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age: Inquisition</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aftercare, Anal Fingering, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Femdom, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Light Dom/sub, Mental Health Issues, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Subdrop, Support, Unconditional Love, thats after the porn part tho</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 05:35:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,086</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29287512</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopitGerald/pseuds/StopitGerald</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She is diligent with him, his mind, his heart, his body, and he’s never needed her more in his life.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Inquisitor and The Commander [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2159928</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Disassemble</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I really really love the idea of Cullen discovering that letting go and submitting to his lady love really eases his tension, but then I thought that he seems like the sort who might suffer from subdrop, or at least from some sort of “god I’m awful” after sex. </p><p>So this mostly is about that, the sexy part was fun to write, but the last half was the point of writing this, to get into his head and then let my inquisitor make him all better.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Cullen is beautiful like this, taut as a bowstring, flushed and pink and panting. His strong, thick fingers fisted in the bedsheets, pulling fitfully, and his muscular thighs trembling at her every move. His toes clench, his unkempt hair, perfectly curly from fingers running through it, mussing up the way he had styled it for the day, and sticking to his forehead with beads of sweat.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Golden eyes open and then scrunch closed, his mouth puckers and then opens in a gasp- then a whine, high and needy and almost feminine. His back arches, muscles tight and slick with sweat, flexing on his abdomen. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her hand is curled around his length, hard and weeping- he’s been at her mercy for what feels like hours, now. Pinned to the bed and told not to move, not to speak, not unless he’s instructed. And she had told him to lie down, to let her have her way with him, and she has.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Hours of relentless teasing have left purple and red bruises and bite marks across his torso, around his nipples, over his sternum, his neck, his jaw- his lips rubbed raw from kiss after kiss. He could have come from all of that attention alone, but that would have broken the rules. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>break her rules.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He wants, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>wants. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He has to be good for her, to follow her instruction, to please her. To see her smile, to hear her whisper what a good boy he’s being. It melts him, it sends fire through his belly, spikes through his heart, it is everything and nothing, it is too much and never enough. Overstimulated but always needing</span>
  <em>
    <span> more, more, more.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She’s slipped between his legs, the two strong, heavy limbs thrown over her shoulders, her teeth and lips scraping the soft, wiry hairs and sensitive skin on his inner thighs, her hand around his length, pumping slowly, slickened enough to make ludicrously lewd sounds as she rubs her thumb around his crown.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She nuzzles the crook of his knee and kisses the sweaty, salty skin there, then looks back to where he is bowing and keening and gasping in the pillows. The slow, tortuous build up to this, to the main act, the part she loves the most- where she teases him until he forgets everything exists except for her- he forgets the withdrawals, the expectations set on him, his fears, his past- it’s all </span>
  <em>
    <span>nothing</span>
  </em>
  <span> when she has him so wound up. She brings him pleasure so much it’s painful, and it consumes him like a wildfire until she chooses to put it out, like the flickering wind over an oil lamp.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She calls to him, uses his name, and he cries out in response, broken syllables a pathetic attempt at repeating her name back to her in answer, but she loves it. She loves it when she can break him, because that is when she can build him back up, strengthen him and relax him- give him a home and shelter from the things that torture him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Cullen,” it’s almost a whisper, “open your eyes, look at me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And he does, immediately, and it breaks her heart and fills it up all at once, his eyes watery with tears of </span>
  <em>
    <span>too much</span>
  </em>
  <span>, desperate and needy, the way they widen as he sees her, in nothing but a sheer nightgown, her hand around his manhood staring him down, the way his eyes say “</span>
  <em>
    <span>i want to please you, I need to please you.” </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>All he wants is to be good for her, and she knows it like she knows the backs of her hands.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her gaze softens so much she believes her own eyes to be watering as well, and she kisses his thigh again without breaking eye contact. Squeezing the base of him firmly, feeling the slick of his precome, their mixed saliva she’d coated him in, she gives him that final command that lets everything go, that breaks the dam, that sends him spiraling into ecstasy so intense his eyes white out and his hands cramp he grips the sheets so hard. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Come for me, Cullen.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And he does, his back practically lifts off the bed, and his thighs tighten against her shoulders, legs so strong that she actually has to push back against him to keep him from pinning her down when he goes taut with the intensity of it all.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He cries out, loudly, and it tapers off into a choked, long, moaning sob- she can see the twinkling of tears rolling down his cheeks as he spills over her fingers, twitching </span>
  <em>
    <span>hard</span>
  </em>
  <span> beneath digits as she slowly strokes him through it, the gentlest touch. He’s overstimulated enough as it is, from hours of teasing, from the hours of building it all up, the tension and the need.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>All of it, as much as she enjoys it all, is the glorious build up to </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> moment, when he falls apart. All of his worries, his depression and anxiety, fears and trauma, they leave him, even if only for a few moments.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And he always breaks like this, crying and shaking and gasping, some nights worse than others. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They lay together often, they are lovers, after all, but this is different, and it is beyond impossible for Cullen to simply come out and say, “I need you to tease and fuck me into submission, until I lose my mind and my brain leaks from my skull.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So it comes in subtleties. The way he collapses for her, the way he’ll fall to his knees, look to her with wide eyes, golden and bright, and ask her without those lewd words, without any words at all. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And she can see it coming, usually, when his shoulders grow heavy and tight with knots, when his eyes become stormy and troubled and he tosses and turns in his sleep. When he snaps at his recruits, when his sun colored hair is rough from his fingers running through it with stress. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They fall into this naturally, now, when he needs her, she is already there. The inquisitor. The Herald of Andraste, splaying him out and ravishing him until he can only chant her name over and over, until the only thing troubling him is the minuscule moments where she is not touching him, when her eyes stray from his for a split second. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He enjoys this, and though he’d never admit it, too embarrassed, too ashamed that he becomes so weak, she knows that he does- or he would not come to her so submissive and eager, again and again. To her, it is so, he is a strong man who carries the weight of it all, the inquisition, its forces, on his back, and he comes to her soft and needy when he becomes broken by the strain.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>To him, it is sometimes selfish, it is something to be ashamed of, that he needs the help, that he needs something like.. </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span>... to be a functional commander. He shouldn’t need it, he should take the lyrium, rally the troops, raise the sword. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But other times, he sees the softness in his lovers eyes, feels the way her hands revere his body, and knows there is love here. It is not about smashing him down into nothing as if it is some service he requires to become whole again afterwards. In truth, it is the tenderness of a lover who cannot stand to see her man suffer, who takes his body into her arms and does not break him, but gently disassembles him, cleans and kisses all of the pieces, and builds him back up. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Not as service, but as an act of adoration, of love, and reassurance.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She </span>
  <em>
    <span>loves</span>
  </em>
  <span> Cullen. She loves the way he moves, the way he talks, the way he thinks.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And he loves her just the same, even more so as he finds himself bent in half in her lap, legs against her cheeks, shaking and whining and weeping in the wake of such an explosive climax. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>This</span>
  </em>
  <span> is the part that breaks her heart, just like the rest of it fills her up- </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Some nights, he curls into her arms after wiping away the sweat and saliva and come and they sleep gently against one another for hours until morn. But some nights, nights after particularly hard weeks, after losses on the battlefronts, after weeks of paperwork and negotiations and mind-numbingly annoying nobles and diplomats visiting Skybold- some nights- he can’t recover after his high, he can’t come down safely. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tonight is one of those nights, and it starts when he can’t seem to stop crying after she pulls her hand away and wipes his spend against a cloth she has slung over the end of her bed. The sun has set long ago, the room is dark save for the last rays of twilight on the horizon and a few candles she’d lit when they’d retired to her quarters for the night, for </span>
  <em>
    <span>this.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She’s wiping her hand, humming to herself while he gasps for breath and relaxes all of those muscles that had clenched with his end. She’s waiting for him to move or speak, letting him catch his breath, letting him come to and come to her on his own time, but then she notices that he’s not.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His breathing is still labored, and he’s still shaking. She looks over him, shifting back onto her knees to glance past his bent ones, feet flat on the bed, to his red, flushed face. And she sees that he’s weeping. His mouth pursed, eyes pinched closed and brows furrowed in what looks like pain, fists still clenching in the sheets.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He had relaxed after he had finished, after he’d stopped moaning and bucking into her hand, but he’d been overcome with a swell, a rushing tidal wave of shame, humiliation, depression. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He shouldn’t need this, he should be better than this, he shouldn’t need someone to care for him, he needs to be strong enough to stand on his own, without fail or falter, for the inquisition, for the troops, for her. And it shouldn’t be… </span>
  <em>
    <span>this. </span>
  </em>
  <span>This submission, this lewd display- he should be </span>
  <em>
    <span>better</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>If he was stronger, he thinks, if he wasn’t so broken and desolate, if he wasn’t such a shell of a man, such a chasm of nothingness, if he </span>
  <em>
    <span>deserved</span>
  </em>
  <span> his position, even more so if he deserved her </span>
  <em>
    <span>love</span>
  </em>
  <span>-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He </span>
  <em>
    <span>sobs,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and he tries to sit up, squirming his legs against the bed, but they feel like jelly, and he covers his face with sweaty hands and turns onto his side, away from her. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As far as he knows, she’s busying herself with cleanup, cleaning up </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>mess, cleaning up the mess he’s made while </span>
  <em>
    <span>she </span>
  </em>
  <span>cares for </span>
  <em>
    <span>him. </span>
  </em>
  <span>She gives her all, and all he does is… is take. So he cries quietly to himself, in his state of delirium and depression eating at his heart like a wild wolf, and he thinks she doesn’t notice, he thinks she’s probably hoping he’ll collect himself and leave.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In truth, she wants </span>
  <em>
    <span>nothing </span>
  </em>
  <span>of the sort. Normally, For him to leave, after a night of intimacy, it would ruin her entire night, it would leave her cold and lonely, desperate for his warm arms, his heartbeat under her palm. But after </span>
  <em>
    <span>this?</span>
  </em>
  <span> After a night meant to calm him, to soothe and love him? It would be completely unacceptable. She would </span>
  <em>
    <span>hate </span>
  </em>
  <span>it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And all of the things, all of the awful, devilish, heart wrenching, gut twisting thoughts eating his mind alive, tearing him apart from the inside while he suffers alone, she believes </span>
  <em>
    <span>none </span>
  </em>
  <span>of them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>If he were to voice them, her blood would boil at hearing such vile things said about the man she adores, that strong commander she knows can lift mountains, can direct armies- to hear that slander, she couldn’t stand for it- and to hear it from his own lips? Her heart shatters for him, aches to soothe his cries and his fears that come creeping back in, chasing down his high.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She’s crawled to his side, laying on her side next to him, sitting up on her elbow and leaning over his form. He’s curled into fetal position on his side, facing away from her, shuddering and shivering and weeping into his hands.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>First, she tugs a blanket up over his torso, and curls a hand around his bicep, stroking his clammy skin, reassuring him that she is there.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Cullen, my good boy,” she tries, knowing he takes to the praise, “My strong man, I’m right here.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She pets his arm, and lowers her head over his to lather soft kisses against his cheek, wet from tears. She gently nurses them away with her lips, kisses his temple, his ear, his closed eye, his stubble. Her fingers thread into his curls, tight and </span>
  <em>
    <span>truly </span>
  </em>
  <span>curly after drying from being sweat soaked. She loves his curls, and she tells him so as she kisses his head.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’s calmed a little, feeling her touch against his skin, her gentle words, her loving gaze cast over his body, feeling tight and small and vulnerable after all that has transpired.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Pretty Cullen,” she purrs, nipping pale skin on his broad shoulder, “Maker, you’re so beautiful.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He calms further, his breathing manageable, a slow roll of his flushed chest, in through his nose, out through his mouth, and his mind is distracted, now, from those horrible thoughts. Her voice and breath against his ear, she’s shifted to spoon him, her thigh resting up on his hip, her arm around his curved shoulders, kissing his skin, cradling his body close. Her touch and her words, he’s thinking only of her, now, and it is obvious that she wants him close, she wants him here in her bed, in her arms.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And she says it, she </span>
  <em>
    <span>says it, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and all of Cullen’s fears are washed away like a gentle, twilight tide. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I love you, Cull,” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The tidal wave of his climax, followed by the flood of shame and depression, now ebbed by her love and attention.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He opens his eyes and he can feel that they’re swollen and red and rounded from tears and exertion. He’ll feel that tomorrow when he trains the recruits. He focuses first on the night sky out the windows adjacent to her bed, and then on how dry his mouth is.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He opens his mouth, but finds his voice so hoarse that he can’t try to speak, from moaning and crying and screaming her name while she teased and fingered and stroked him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Shh, baby,” she coos, stroking a knuckle against his jawline, “I’m right here, let me get you some water.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She peels herself away from him, reluctantly, as he’s warm and solid and </span>
  <em>
    <span>needs her</span>
  </em>
  <span>- but she’ll be right back, her hand is gentle against the firm muscles of his back as she leans to her nightstand to grasp a small skin of water, one of the things she’s always sure to have for him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She curls back over to him and gently leads his shoulder to lay flat against the mattress, and then hikes him up against the pillows and headboard. He tries not to look at her, face pink, shame creeps into his sad, golden eyes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But she’s having none of that, and with her free hand she leads his face to hers, her fingers around his chin. And for the first time since he had begun to weep, he looks at her, in earnest.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her gentle gaze consumes him, her eyes convey everything he needs to know, every uncertainty he’s been having tonight, and he feels tears prick the corners of his eyes again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She leads the water to his lips, softest touch against his neck as she watches him take it into his mouth, slow, and then swallow, heavy Adam’s apple bobbing as he does so.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“There we go,” she whispers, cradling his cheek, and he relaxes his head into her hand and closes his eyes. He sighs deeply as the last of the anxiety starts to trail off, sleepiness starts to seep into his bones.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” he manages, his voice cracking and hoarse, and he almost turns away again, but she’s got a hold on his face and body so he cannot. He stares at her, and she stares at him with eyes full of tears and unspoken words, full of sadness at how much pain he is in.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“Never be sorry,” she says, voice kind, but stern, “don’t ever apologize for this, you’ve done nothing wrong.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He shudders, knowing she would say that, but relieved to hear it nonetheless. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Cullen,” she cups his cheeks, curls her thigh over his, “baby, I’m here for you, always.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then he slumps forwards into her arms, let’s her rearrange him in her grasp, spooning his broad form against her slim body, doing her best to cover him and cradle him. And it is the safest and warmest he’s ever been, his eyes shut peacefully and he curls against her body, letting out one shuddering breath before he begins to doze.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She does the same, resting herself against him protectively, possessively. She would do anything for him, anything to protect him, even from himself, from his duty- she will keep him whole.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>With the worst having passed and her having reassured him enough to calm him, she revels in feeling his body and mind relax against her, knowing he feels the weight slipping off of his shoulders and breaking off into nothingness. She’s managed to build him back into the man she knows he is, tonight, and tomorrow morning he will don his armor and appear before his troops with determination and steel, and they will be in awe of their commander.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Kissing his neck, she brushes her nose over his ear and murmurs words of love against his skin, and he shivers, half asleep.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He knows, too, that tonight has succeeded like the nights before it, that tomorrow he will feel whole again, after a night with her, after her words and her breakdown of him, to build him back up. He feels the calm and the warmth in his belly and the haze of sex and sleep over his mind, and he smiles mindlessly and cuddles closer to her, sighing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I love you,” he blows out on a whispered breath, “thank you,”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And she responds in kind, “and I, you. Always.”</span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
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